Media Release: Roman­tic sus­pense at a horse show

NOWAVAIL­ABLE on Kin­dle and Paperback

She was look­ing for a horse. What she found was romance… and danger.

Willie Adams is at the L.A. Eques­trian Cen­ter shop­ping for her first horse. A young widow strug­gling with the idea of dat­ing again, she never expected that a gor­geous trainer like Tyler Ran­some would notice her. But he did.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Bobby Fer­mino is not as hand­some, nor as pleas­ant. After attack­ing Willie he ends up dead in her tack room, leav­ing her the most likely suspect.

Willie has to con­vince Detec­tive Lucas Macy that she’s inno­cent, but her phys­i­cal attrac­tion to him isn’t mak­ing the task easy.

With grow­ing evi­dence point­ing to her, and two famous actors draw­ing atten­tion to the inves­ti­ga­tion, Willie decides to take the reins. She must find the mur­derer before they find her, but will she sur­vive open­ing her heart to some­one new?

What does Mid­west Book Reviews have to say about MUR­DERONTHEHOOF?

Read D. Donovan’s review:

If it’s a horse story com­bined with a romance that jazzes you, then Mur­der on the Hoof promises to trot away with your heart, and is the item of choice for any who wants a steamy love story and mur­der mys­tery, served up equestrian-style.

Willie Adams is a young widow out shop­ping not for a man, but for a horse; so it seems inevitable that she’d encounter a catch in both, with a hand­some horse trainer help­ing over­come her reluc­tance to the notion of dat­ing again.

There’s no time for romance to bud, how­ever, when she finds another poten­tial suitor (who has been less than pleas­ant) dead in her tack room, spark­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion that draws Willie into a bat­tle to pro­tect her rep­u­ta­tion and her business.

Add an attrac­tion to the detec­tive inves­ti­gat­ing the case and a series of seemingly-chance dis­cov­er­ies that seem to point to her as the perp and you have a fast-paced story indeed.

Now, blend­ing romance and mys­tery to cross gen­res and reach both audi­ences is not an unusual approach. What is unusual here is the eques­trian atmos­phere com­bined with not just one romance, but over­lap­ping lay­ers of attrac­tion between var­i­ous pro­tag­o­nists — all cen­tered around the uncer­tain Willie, who is enter­ing the dat­ing scene after a long hia­tus, and only just begin­ning to real­ize the empti­ness of her life with­out a mate: “Hank had been gone for three years now, leav­ing her a widow at barely thirty. The good news was there were no chil­dren to raise with­out him. The bad news was she would have adored rais­ing his chil­dren. Pho­tographs and videos couldn’t be hugged in the mid­dle of a bad night, and her mem­o­ries of their care­free mar­riage did not feel like much of a legacy.”

Gayle Car­line cre­ates scenes that are high-charged and appeal­ing, includ­ing the insights of male pro­tag­o­nists as well as the cen­tral female fig­ure: some­thing that rounds out the action and spe­cial inter­ests quite well: “Her breath was a soft breeze in his ear as she con­fessed her inno­cence, and he could almost feel the strength of her heart­beat, pound­ing like a horse’s hooves. In that moment, he could have eas­ily wrapped his arms around her and never let her go.”

It’s refresh­ing to note that the horse scenes are just as well detailed as the romance: “Willie pressed Chester and started him jog­ging, too. Most horses were bumpy at the jog, but Chester was like rid­ing a Cadil­lac with really good shocks. She could feel his back end rise and fall, but his flat knee action kept him float­ing instead of ram­ming each foot into the ground. After her recent injuries, she was espe­cially thank­ful.” It’s this atten­tion to detail that round out the mystery/romance plot with a believ­able set­ting and addi­tional insights: much needed devices too often lack­ing in the romance genre, but more than present in Mur­der on the Hoof, where equine expe­ri­ences are a strong empha­sis. It’s obvi­ous Car­line knows her horses!

Life’s ironies and changes are well pre­sented in the story of a young widow who thinks she’s going to a horse show to buy a horse, but who buys romance and dan­ger instead. Read­ers seek­ing more than one-dimensional descrip­tions of on-and-off pas­sions will find Mur­der on the Hoof just the ticket, steeped in the ironies, twists, and multi-layered emo­tions that make for a real­is­tic, absorb­ing read. (D. Dono­van, eBook Reviewer, MBR)

[…] to my friend Gayle Car­line, whose new book is being released today in paper­back and on Kin­dle. MUR­DERONTHEHOOF is a con­tem­po­rary roman­tic sus­pense about a young widow who goes to a horse show to buy a horse. […]